Applebaum blames the victim for the rape

posted at 10:12 am on September 30, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

Yesterday, I just considered Anne Applebaum to have a conflict of interest over Roman Polanski’s arrest in Switzerland. After her response to criticism for failing to disclose her husband’s efforts to get charges dropped against the director, it seems clear that Applebaum has lost whatever sense she formerly had — and that her readers are overwhelmingly repulsed by it. In responding to Patterico, Applebaum scoffs at the notion that the 13-year-old girl had been victimized — because she called her mother before the attack. I’m not kidding:

Of course, there were some very legitimate disagreements, including two excellent ones from my colleagues Gene Robinson and Richard Cohen, and I take some of their points. But to them, and to all who imagine that the original incident at the heart of this story was a straightforward and simple criminal case, I recommend reading the transcript of the victim’s testimony (here in twoparts) — including her descriptions of the telephone conversation she had with her mother from Polanski’s house, asking permission to be photographed in Jack Nicholson’s jacuzzi — and not just the salacious bits.

As one commenter on the site noted, if Applebaum finds the description of rape and sodomy “salacious”, she needs help. In any event, the transcript does not show the girl asking for or receiving her mother’s permission to have her picture taken in a jacuzzi, let alone in the nude. Patterico updates his readers on exactly what the transcript does show:

Q. What happened out there after he indicated he wished to take pictures of you in the jacuzzi?

A. We went inside and called my mother.

Q. When you say “we called,” did you call or did Mr. Polanski call?

A. He told me to and I talked and then he talked and then I talked again.

Q. What did you tell your mother?

A. She goes, “Are you all right?

I went, “Uh-huh.”

And she says, “Do you want me to come pick you up?”

And I went, “No.”

And he said that we’d be home kind of late because it had already gotten dark out.

Q. When you said “he said,” did he tell you or did you hear him tell your mother on the phone?

A. He told my mother.

Q, Did he tell your mother any other things?

A. Not that I was listening to.

Q. After talking to your mother on the telephone, what happened?

A. We went out and I got in the jacuzzi.

Nowhere in this transcript is this “permission” to get photographed in a jacuzzi mention. But let’s say for a moment that it did, and that the mother said that it was OK to get in the jacuzzi to snap some photos. Does Applebaum believe that it amounted to permission to sexually abuse a 13-year-old girl, and that such an agreement somehow trumps the girl’s repeated demands that Polanski stop attacking her? And this doesn’t even begin to address the fact that Polanski drugged the victim first to make her more compliant.

Applebaum crosses the line into some despicable territory here. She argues that once someone gets into a jacuzzi, regardless of their protestations and their refusals, that a girl is fair game for a rapist no matter what her age. No no longer means no if the shameless hussy leads on the poor, victimized male.

After two days of widespread expressions of support for jailed filmmaker Roman Polanski, from European political leaders as well as leading cultural figures there and in the United States, the mood was shifting among French politicians Tuesday about whether the government should have rushed to rally around the Oscar-winning director.

Marc Laffineur, the vice-president of the French assembly and a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling center-right party, the UMP, took issue with the French culture and foreign minister’s remarks supporting Mr. Polanski, saying “the charge of raping a child 13 years old is not something trivial, whoever the suspect is.”

Within the Green party, Daniel Cohn-Bendit — a French deputy in the European parliament whose popularity is rising — also criticized Sarkozy administration officials for leaping too quickly to Mr. Polanski’s side despite the serious nature of his crime. On the extreme right, the father and daughter politicians Jean-Marie and Marine Le Pen also attacked the ministers, saying they were supporting “a criminal pedophile in the name of the rights of the political-artistic class.” …

The mood was even more hostile in blogs and e-mails to newspapers and news magazines. Of the 30,000 participants in an online poll by the French daily Le Figaro, more than 70 percent said Mr. Polanski, 76, should face justice. And in the magazine Le Point, more than 400 letter writers were almost universal in their disdain for Mr. Polanski.

That contempt was not only directed at Mr. Polanski, but at the French class of celebrities — nicknamed Les People — who are part of Mr. Polanski’s rarefied Parisian world. Letter writers to Le Point scorned Les People as the “crypto-intelligentsia of our country” who deliver “eloquent phrases that defy common sense.”

In other words, the vast majority of French people feel the same way about Polanski as the vast majority of Americans. In both countries, sympathy for a child rapist seems isolated to the entertainment elite and the media sycophants who love them.

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After two days of widespread expressions of support for jailed filmmaker Roman Polanski, from European political leaders as well as leading cultural figures there and in the United States, the mood was shifting among French politicians Tuesday about whether the government should have rushed to rally around the Oscar-winning director.

What is really sad is that the mood is shifting in response to political fallout.

How anyone can defend this piece of dirt is beyond me. I don’t care if her mother gave Polanski permission to rape her daughter and if the victim also agreed to be raped. It is STILL rape (yes Whoopi, I mean “rape rape”) when the child is 13 years old.

pedophiles need to be executed….there has never, ever been 1 pedophile treated with today’s current methods that was a success, meaning that they wouldn’t commit another rape of a child, other than lifelong prison terms, and we seem to release them eventually…execution is the answer…and these apoligist’s for the pedophiles need to be scorned in public…at a minimum

Hey, remember when that Foley instant messaged a Congressional page and had to resign for it? And how Hollywood and the left rallied around him and said, “It’s just some nasty instant messages, it’s not like Foley’s boyfriend was running a brothel out of his house or anything. It’s not like it’s bringing an underage page to a foreign country for consensual sex.”

No wonder the victim doesn’t want to prolong this. Would you want to have these deviant “journalists” trashing you in the media…would you want to read how the perpetrator has “suffered enough”, would you want people like Whoopie trivializing the crime on national tv? These people are despicable. The guy has had his freedom way too long. He’s a coward who needs to be a man and face a judge and accept a sentence, however long it may be. And then he can appeal it all the way to kingdom come, but he lived in this country and needs to obey our rules or accept the consequences.

I read the testimony yesterday and concluded that if only these idiot elites – Whoopie, Applebaum, Debra Winger – would take a minute to read what happened, they would immediately backpedal. There is no way you could read the full testimony and conclude anything other than Polanski’s actions were rape – repeated rape and sodomy of a drugged 13 year old by a predatory adult.

Now Applebaum actually cites the testimony to make her warped case.

There are two Americas alright, Normal Americans and Applebaum Americans.

They are promoting a view that is reprehensible to just about every American and frenchman even the lefties at HofPo are outraged by this. they have just in one week undermined all of the last 40 years of advocating for victims’ rights done in this nation. They are blaming the victim to defend the perpetrator of a brutal and despicable act. they do this using a venue that gives them access to millions of people in a attempt to inject their morality into the community. If we do not speak up then we weaken the community, even if 1 person is swayed we are diminished.

In other words, the vast majority of French people feel the same way about Polanski as the vast majority of Americans. In both countries, sympathy for a child rapist seems isolated to the entertainment elite and the media sycophants who love them.

Amen. One working class Frenchman I happen to know (a cop) would have put his fist through this guy’s jaw if Ropie had ever gone anywhere near his daughter.

And forgive me, I think I’m settling on “Ropie the Rapist” as my preferred appellation.

IF a Mother did consent to have her 13 year old photographed in the NUDE that is child Pornography, and she should be prosecuted so should Polanski. The list of charges should be increased, and he should be put on a list of registered sex offenders. This woman who is trying to defend a grown a$$ man who was CONVICTED of raping and sodomizing a child, should be shunned – she is not human no where do I recognize any humanity in the defenders of Roman Polanski. Why does this woman have a job with any legitimate News organization?

These people who are defending the rape and sodomizing of a 13 old child are devoid of what makes a person HUMAN. Don’t let them fool you just because they are walking upright. Animals behave better than these NASTY excuses for Mouth Breathers.

One of the delicious consequences of this 31-year-old offense to deceny is the (re)emergence of the use of the name of the director when referring to an event with an unfortunate outcome. You know, as in, “Wow, that was a hard mid-term. The prof really Polanskied me!”

(Could anyone evah make a more gratuitous comment than this? I think not.)

This is the same attitude that enable ACORN to give advice on enslaving young girls for prostitution. Is it any wonder ACORN has survived? They have the moral compass as most of the perverts in Hollywood and not just a few in Washington.

I think it’s entirely fair to ask what the heck her mother was thinking, but all the same–it in no way excuses what he did to a 13 year old girl.

Period.

Bob’s Kid on September 30, 2009 at 10:21 AM

I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that there are plenty of mothers in L.A. who wouldn’t mind if a 44 year-old movie director screwed their teenage daughter if it would make her a movie star.

If a 15 y.o. showed up at my house in lingerie… begging me to have sex with her… got on the phone and had her parents tell me it’s OK… it is STILL criminal, immoral, and vile if I (as a man in his early 40s) took her up on it.

As a mother and a woman I am speechless. I thought the days of “she had it coming because of what she wore, etc” were over with the rise of the feminist movement. That is why we have tried to end sexual harassment in the workplace. That is why we teach our children not to let anyone touch them. I wouldn’t doubt that Ms Applebaum thought that the priests who engaged young boys in sexual misconduct were monsters.

I am not sure how Anne Applebaum can really look at herself in a mirror.

If making a couple of pretty good movies means that a person should be excused for child rape, I wonder for how much a person who has made a lot of great movies can be excused. Could Alfred Hitchcock have gotten away with raping someone? Could Kubrick have been a serial killer? Could Woody Allen have married his own stepdaughter? Ok, forget that last example…you get my point.

I don’t know whats worse. Hearing these types come up with new disgusting arguments daily, or coping with the fact that aronofsky, gilliam, AND bellucci signed that blasted petition. There goes my two favorite directors and my dream woman…this is such a nasty, nasty story.

I seem to recall during all the mandatory sexual harassment and rape seminars I have gone to that even if a woman says stop during the middle of consensual sex, that if the male doesn’t do as she asks, he commits rape. I also seem to recall something about how a child isn’t mature enough to make any lasting decision so even if she would have said yes then it is still rape. Did I miss something here? Can anyone make a flow chart on just how this thinking works. Here I am thinking calculus is hard.

This is an excellent insight into the pathology of the liberal mind. Liberals/progressives are incapable of laying blame or responsibility on anyone, except conservatives, for anything. If Polanski would have shot the kid in the head after he raped her, idiots like Applebaum would still be blaming the victim. The only cure for idiots like her is removal of half of her brain, or at least what’s left of it.

There ya go, the little slut was just askin’ for it. It was like putting meat before a dog. Poor Roman just couldn’t resist. I think we should find this tramp and drag her down to some town square and stone her for all the anguish that she’s meted out to dear Mr. Polanski over the years. Think of all the pain a deprivation that he’s suffered. Exiled from his home, living in poverty, separated from the work he loves, an outcast from his pathetic sycophant loser friends, afraid to show his face in public. The horror. If you think I need to put a sarc tag on this you need to have your head examined.

PS – even if the girl said “yes” he’s guilty. Focusing on the compliance of a drugged 13-year old or her mother is completely ridiculous. Even if she was stone-cold-sober, she cannot consent to being abused by a predator.

Can anyone make a flow chart on just how this thinking works. Here I am thinking calculus is hard.

txaggie on September 30, 2009 at 10:26 AM

Calculus is actually pretty easty. :)

But to your main point, I agree. The ideologues in the left would have us live in a quasi-feudal state in which different people have different rights, depending on their perceived amount of victim points or artistic contributions (and possibly other factors I can’t think of at the moment). It is paradoxical and bizarre that a supposedly democratic group of people would seriously think that way, but on the evidence, that is my conclusion.

Does Applebaum believe that it amounted to permission to sexually abuse a 13-year-old girl, and that such an agreement somehow trumps the girl’s repeated demands that Polanski stop attacking her? And this doesn’t even begin to address the fact that Polanski drugged the victim first to make her more compliant.

Agreed. If her argument is that the mother gave permission, of course that is tantamount to pimping. Did Polanski still rape the little girl in various ways? Um, yes. Did the little girl have any recourse to defend herself against her own mother, the perpetrator, or even her own naivete? No.

I would be clamoring for his head even if this were not “rape-rape.” A grown-man going after a 13-year-old girl? Civilized societies establish an age of consent for a reason, and children (and adolescents) need to be able to count on adults to behave appropriately. No decent person would do otherwise. I don’t care if she were nude and chasing after him, he was a grown man (in his 40s, no less), and it would be vile to do anything other than throw a raincoat on her and have a talk with her mother. But, this is even worse–he’s a grown man who raped a child and sees nothing wrong with what he did. The fact that Applebaum lacks clarity to this degree is disappointing, to say the least.

The support of that sick, pedophile makes me ill. I haven’t seen a Polanski movie since I heard of the rape many years ago.Hollywood’s support of that **** is unbelieveable. I agree with everyone here on this. How can anyone support him and claim it’s not rape?

Why are so many people coming to Roman Polanski’s defense? I’m just an ignorant Hoosier, so could someone more worldly please explain this to me. Do the Liberal Elite really think what he’s done is ok or that he’s been punished enough? Or is it perhaps because he is in a realm higher than us mere mortals and should be held to a different (lower) standard? Do all these people streaming to his defense realize how much this hurts their creditability? At least I’ll never have to listen to Hollywood preaching morality to me again.

pedophiles need to be executed….there has never, ever been 1 pedophile treated with today’s current methods that was a success, meaning that they wouldn’t commit another rape of a child, other than lifelong prison terms

It is clear that Applebaum lives in a sick twisted world. One in which she can rationalize the rape of a child and at the same time be offended by the questioning of her integrity by a commenter mentioning her husband’s defense of Polanski. WaPo needs to distance themselves from this insanity.

I don’t have any kids. But I am moral enough to be against the death penalty. When it says ‘thou shall not kill’, I think God means even through the government. The death penalty is not justice, it is revenge. The judicial system should not be concerned with revenge.

And seven brings up the Catholic priests. . . that’s perfect. How many of the Catholic priests were convicted and sentenced to death?

Oh, they are Catholic priests so they are under different rules. Boycott Hollywood, not Rome.

That used to be the defense before woman gained their rightful equality. So where are the woman’s groups protesting the use of this defense in this case?

TheBigOldDog on September 30, 2009 at 10:35 AM

Still a defense in countries with Sharia (sp?)law. I was wondering the same thing about women’s groups. My guess is that they’re pretending to be ostriches with their heads stuck up where the sun don’t shine.

Polanski’s defenders can not get around that simple fact, no matter how much they can twist everything else.

Chris of Rights on September 30, 2009 at 10:41 AM

I suppose you people think that condemning makes you moral. Maybe it is a contest to see who is more outraged so that they get to a higher place in heaven. Look St. Peter, I was so angry at Polanski I deserve to be in heaven.

People are not defending Polanski. He has been exiled (American kids are safe – ie our judicial system protected Americans). He has paid a fine (probably substantial). The victim wants this to be dropped.

If the victim herself can forgive, who are you to want more revenge? Seriously, you people here think you are entitled to something. A pound of flesh is good for the soul.

Within the Green party, Daniel Cohn-Bendit — a French deputy in the European parliament whose popularity is rising — also criticized Sarkozy administration officials for leaping too quickly to Mr. Polanski’s side despite the serious nature of his crime.

Cohn-Bendit worked in the Karl-Marx-Buchhandlung bookshop and ran a kindergarten (of children between five and eight years’ old). Later in 2001 he was accused of pedophilia. This accusation was grounded on the following citation from his 1975 book Le Grand Bazar, [1]: “On several occasions certain kids would open my fly and start to stroke me. I reacted differently according to circumstances, but their desire posed a problem for me. I asked them: ‘Why don’t you play together? Why have you chosen me, and not the other kids?’ But if they insisted, I caressed them still.

Mr Cohn-Bendit is a member of the Green Party, of course. A major piece of legislation that the Greens tried to push in the 80s was … to lower the age of consent to 14. Mr Cohn-Bendit was a driving force behind legislation.

There is a different levels of “kill” that your facile exegesis attempts to paper over.

Lehosh on September 30, 2009 at 10:46 AM

So we should have executed all the Catholic priests then. I don’t recall any being executed. . . nor do I recall as much outrage. I’m not papering over anything.

I am astonished at the blood thirsty nature of ‘moral’ people here. It’s as though you believe if we kill him, the rape will be erased. It won’t be. . . we will just have killed someone in addition to someone being raped. It would be REVENGE, not JUSTICE. Two concepts that seem foreign to posters here.

I am not sure how Anne Applebaum can really look at herself in a mirror.

Ricki on September 30, 2009 at 10:26 AM

I can’t understand how she is employed and allowed to publish -this enabling of a convicted criminal, and calling for THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES to be ignored or subjugated because she hero worships a pedophile.

2) Just a couple of paragraphs after giving the 10 Commandments, God gives clear instructions on how and when to use capital punishment (Exodus 21:12 – 29). In all the years I’ve heard theological arguments against capital punishment, I have NEVER heard those people address those verses.

3) I have no problem with pedophiles being executed. God is very protective over children, we should be, too.

Except, some don’t think that way…yesterday ThackerAgency stated that a man cannot be expected to control his urges under those conditions.
Yeah, it is unbelievable, but some people actually think that men are not responsible for their actions.
Applebaum is apparently one of those also, that a man, when the mood strikes, or is “enticed” (and they seem to be the ones to define entice), can’t control himself so rape is a legitimate outlet of emotion.

a pedophile is a pedophile, catholic, moon dog muslim, protestant, anddddd…castration does not work..they rape again….elimination is needed…AND…if you or your family have never been affected by a pedophile…you have no frickin idea how devastating it is…and i pray you never know…it is THE hidden secret in America and the world…